SaaS Metrics Tool Built in 8 Days, Hit $30K MRR

Josh Pigford built a SaaS metrics tool in eight days and launched it without a landing page, blog, or email list. Within eight weeks, he had $2,000 in monthly recurring revenue - and a stranger paying $249 a month for a product he almost kept to himself. Josh needed SaaS metrics for his own Stripe-based products and found existing SaaS analytics platforms too complex. So he built Baremetrics - a simple SaaS dashboard that pulled MRR, churn, and lifetime value directly from the Stripe API. Five or six paying customers signed up on day one. Within a few months, Baremetrics had eclipsed his other two products and was growing 30% month over month. Josh charged from day one and never offered a free beta. He believes feedback from non-paying users is almost useless because those users have no incentive to give honest input. Only paying customers tell you which SaaS metrics actually matter. After bootstrapping for a year and hitting $30K MRR with 350 customers, Josh raised $500K to hire faster - his biggest regret was doing everything himself for six months instead of building a team sooner. 🔑 Key Lessons 🚀 Launch your SaaS metrics product fast, even if it's embarrassing: Josh built Baremetrics in 8 days with half the features and stale data - but it solved a real pain and proved the business existed. 💰 Charge from day one to get real SaaS metrics feedback: Free beta users have no incentive to give useful input. Josh's paying customers told him exactly what to build, leading to a successful product rebuild. 🎯 Solve your own problem for authentic product-market fit: Josh built Baremetrics because he needed subscription metrics for his own Stripe products. Even if no one else wanted it, it still served him. 📉 Skip the launch playbook when solving obvious pain: No landing page, no email list, no blog. Josh launched with just a working product and Twitter. If the pain is big enough, word of mouth does the work. 🧠 Bootstrap first, then raise funding from a position of strength: Josh proved Baremetrics was a real business over 12 months before raising $500K. That traction gave him leverage and directed the money toward hiring. 🛠️ Rebuild based on real SaaS metrics usage data, not assumptions: After two months of paying customer feedback, Josh scrapped the codebase and rebuilt. The second version converted more customers by matching actual usage. 🤝 Hire sooner than you think you need to: Josh's biggest regret was doing everything himself for six months. Building a team earlier would have accelerated growth and improved product quality. Chapters Introduction What Baremetrics does and who it serves Building the first version in 8 days Finding the first paying customers through Twitter A surprise $249 signup on day one Why free betas are a terrible idea Scrapping the codebase and rebuilding after 2 months The biggest mistake - not hiring soon enough Revenue growth at 30% month over month Why Josh raised $500K after bootstrapping for a year Current revenue at $30K MRR with 350 customers Dealing with copycats and competition Resources Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/48 Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email